Quesion about S2's "Dawn"

[Trekwatcher]

I just rewatched "Dawn" again and was wondering if there is any backstory on this episode. This story has been done so many times (the film "Enemy Mine" and TNG's "Darmok" and "The Enemy", among others). I was left wondering why they decided to redo this type of story again for ENT. Was this an intentional homage or just another "two enemies stuck on a hostile location" episode done for no reason other than a lack of better scripts?

They did a good job of it, but was it something that they really needed to do?

Does anybody know?

 

[JiNX-01]

It beats the heck out of me. Much as I love Trip episodes (especially Shirtless Trip Episodes!), I so wish they had done something else, just because it's such a flagrant ripoff of Enemy Mine, right down to the scaly alien.

Maybe if they could have given it a spin: The aliens "rescue" Trip and their officer and refuse to return Trip to Enterprise, holding him for trial for trespassing on one of their asteroids even tho' he saved the alien's life. Trip uses what he learned about their technology while working on the alien's shuttle to escape.

Not epic, but what the heck. At least one of these many non-variations on a theme would NOT have ended "happily."

 

[Nebusj]

JiNX-01 said:
Maybe if they could have given it a spin:

Quite a few of the episodes that are otherwise, really, nonentities would have done well to include some kind of twist, even if it was just something tacked on in the last couple seconds. For example, consider ``Vanishing Point'': the parts that don't feel like worn-down ``The Next Phase'' just lack much dramatic impact because what's left is a reset button episode. It could have had some interesting meat put on it if, say, the name of that guy lost to the transporter that Sato's fantasy made up turned out to have been a real legend Sato had no apparent way of knowing about. Or if she were able to pull something material from her fantasy-Enterprise into the real one.

There were some efforts at putting unexpected spins on episodes. A couple episodes, for example, seemed to be grabbing at the idea that characters were fallible narrators, like Tucker in ``Unexpected'' assuming that T'Pol had been telling people about his condition when he was actually just overreacting to normal courtesy, but making characters' views of events unreliable is a very tricky thing to do without confusing the audience, and I think they gave up before figuring out how to do it well.

 

[ChristopherPike]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

Enterprise really would've benefited from the "open door" script policy that TNG had. At best, many of the writers who got their foot in the door, went on to be so influential to TV sci-fi and at worst, offered storylines that seemed less repetitive.

 

[pookha]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

it isnt a rip off of enemy mine since it was far from original.
it is one of the early story telling themes and a lot of the story line more recently had shown up in a world war two move done several years before enemy mine,

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

Enemy Mine was essentially HELL IN THE PACIFIC in space.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

a lot of the show's problems in the first two seasons were a lack of interesting plots or twists or engaging mysteries.

The writers tried to recycle old Trek storylines and hope that the experience of a morewide-eyed crew would compensate. Sometimes it did, other times it didn't.

Say whatever you want about season three it at least injected suspense, intrigue, interesting mysteries and some fresh concepts.

 

[TeutonicNights]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

I think it was intended as a homage to the 80s EnemyMine movie, with the alien dude looking and sounding very much like the Drac. But I agree, this episode would have needed something interesting. The Romulans in "The Enemy" were at least the show's main adversaries.

The worst thing about this episode was that Trip was AGAIN crashing a shuttle, having crashed one only two episodes back.

 

[cylkoth]

Re: Question about S2's "Dawn"

^^

The worst thing about this episode was that Trip was AGAIN crashing a shuttle, having crashed one only two episodes back.

Yeah, this ep should've had Travis testing the shuttlepod instead of Trip. Trip didn't need this outing, having been spotlighted heavily already...